


The grief that shaped

by Judin



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Lord of The Rings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 09:53:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2020596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Judin/pseuds/Judin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They found him chucking stones at the Brandywine, screaming, “Give them back!” at the rippling, unyielding surface.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The grief that shaped

Rorimac Brandybuck wept quietly into his broad hands, every now and then murmuring his sister’s name.

“Prim, oh Prim, my Prim!”

His son Saradoc stood next to him with one hand on his father’s shaking back.

“The boat was floating down river,” Saradoc spoke slowly. “It was pulled up by some lads playing on the bank. We should send someone out to search the stream, but I don’t think we’ll find ... Are you listening, Esme?” He looked pleadingly at his wife. She had sunk down on a chair and didn’t seem to hear him. “Esme!” She looked up, startled, and there were tears swimming in her eyes. Saradoc swallowed heavily around the lump in his throat. He struggled to speak, and in the end there was no sentence, just a single word. “Frodo …” 

The name made Rorimac moan in sorrow.

Esmeralda closed her eyes tightly for a moment, making a couple of tears spill down her cheeks. Then she nodded quickly. They had to find the boy and tell him before word spread. Oh, but he was only twelve! What had Drogo and Primula wanted to go boating for?

Saradoc cleared his throat and took a deep breath to get his voice back. “I don’t think he is at the table anymore; I can’t remember seeing him.”

Esmeralda rose and pushed her black curls away from her face. Her eyes were narrowed and her jaw set in determination. Their grief would have to wait for later; only the boy mattered right now. “We’ll find him. Someone will have seen him go.”

Saradoc looked down at Rorimac and hesitated. “You go ahead. I’ll join you in a bit.” 

Before she left, Esmeralda saw her husband kneel down next to his father and speak quiet words to him.

She wiped her eyes carefully and arranged her skirt in an effort to find composure before entering the main hall, where the music was still playing and the guests were still dancing, unaware that tragedy had come into their midst. A veil of buzzing voices hung in the air, ripped every now and then by a whoop of laughter, only to knit itself back together as undisturbed as the wind by a clap of thunder. Esmeralda strode in between them, looking around for a pale hand, a flash of blue or a head of dark curls, but Frodo wasn’t anywhere among the guests. She asked around, but no one had seen him.

Finally, when she was seriously considering beginning to search vast Brandy Hall all on her own, there was a hand on her shoulder. “Excuse me, Esme, I heard you were looking for Frodo.” It was Bilbo Baggins, an eccentric cousin of Rorimac’s. 

Her sudden hope brought an edge of hysteria to her voice. “Have you seen him?” 

He gave her a sharp look. ‘Mad Baggins’ he might be, but he was no fool. “I believe you will find him in the library.” She nodded thanks and meant to set off, but he caught her shoulder and held her back. “Is there something the matter?” 

For a moment she didn’t want to tell him, but Primula had been his cousin, and Drogo too, somewhat further removed. “Saradoc is in the little parlour down the hall.” She pointed back the way she had come. “He will ... tell you.” In tears all over again, she hurried away, before he could ask more.

How do you explain to a boy of twelve that he will never see his parents again? That was the question pounding in her head as she stood with her hand on the door to the library. She still hadn’t found an answer when she entered.

Frodo was sprawled in an easy-chair with a small book open in his hands. He looked up in surprise when he heard the door; he probably had few visitors in here. Esmeralda’s face must have given her away, for he sat up and looked at her with concern. 

“Is something wrong, aunt Esme?” 

His eyes, those unnaturally big, blue eyes, bore into her with their bright innocence, and it was her lot to take that innocence from him forever.

She shut the door behind her, crossed the floor and knelt down beside his chair. In the moment before the words fell, she took in all of him; his unkempt curls hanging down over his forehead, the tilt of his head, the beautiful, foreign words on the cover of the book he was reading, something Bilbo had brought with him no doubt, and the eyes, always his eyes. He had his father’s colours in his mother’s forms. 

Then the words fell, because they must, and for all their quietness they were like big bells clamouring, like a great weight closing around the boy’s heart and beginning to pull it down. Before the first sentence was finished his eyes were wider than wells, and by the second, the book was forgotten on the floor and his feet were getting ready to run.

~’‘~

Bilbo went by the library later to pick up the book. It was a collection of elvish poetry about the First Age. Frodo didn’t understand elvish, but loved the sound of it, and since Bilbo wasn’t always in the mood to read out loud, he had taught Frodo the basic phonetics, so that the lad could read by himself.

The book lay on the floor still, open on the Lay of Leithian.

~’‘~

Frodo had run away and Esmeralda had let him go; she was not yet a mother, and felt helpless in the face of his grief. She hadn’t expected him to disappear, though. When nightfall came and he was still not back at the Hall, a small party was sent out to search for him. By then the tragic deaths were known to everyone, and there were plenty of volunteers.

They found him chucking stones at the Brandywine, screaming, “Give them back!” at the rippling, unyielding surface. When they called his name he froze, like a deer before hunters, and like a deer he was off before they could stop him, running wild and blind and seeking some shelter from the world, some escape from its sudden, crushing emptiness.

For hours the search continued, until Bilbo, who had been unable to sleep, took his book of elvish poetry and went outside. 

He stood for a moment contemplating the grounds. Where would the lad go? Not to the river; too many were looking for him there. The forest? No, he was a fanciful one, and wouldn’t want to be in there alone after dark, with shadow-goblins lurking under bushes. The old hobbit was surprised at how well he knew his little cousin, being that he usually saw him no more than once or twice a year, but there was something about the lad that Bilbo recognized in himself also. Or maybe it was just that Frodo listened with earnest pleasure to all that Bilbo had to tell.

Rorimac’s gardens were expansive and had plenty of hiding places. Bilbo hummed a tune as he walked past beds of sleeping flowers, tall hedges and twisted, old trees. He found a sturdy bench under a great oak and sat down, opening his book and choosing the Lay of Leithian. He began to read out loud, and the night air picked up the words and painted with them visions of ancient lands where a man wandered, weary and grieving, until he came upon an elven maiden dancing in a glade, and was enchanted by her beauty and her song. It was a long tale, but he was only a few pages in when he heard a rustling of leaves above him. He continued to read as if he hadn’t noticed anything, until Luthien had freed Beren from the dungeons of Sauron. Then he feigned a yawn and stood up as if to leave.

“Wait!” Frodo dropped down from the tree above, and Bilbo pretended to be very startled indeed to see him. “Don’t go. Please finish the story.” The lad looked so contrite you would think he had done something wrong. 

Bilbo sat down on the bench again. “Hmm … I suppose I could, but it is a long story, I should warn you. Perhaps it would be better to finish it tomorrow.”

“No.” Frodo shook his head and sat down on the bench next to him. “Read it now,” he said, with all the intensity and greed of a child, but the grief too, filling the space behind the words like the ocean beyond a harbour. 

_Tonight I am the child of my parents. Tomorrow I am an orphan. Keep tomorrow at bay for just a little while._

And Bilbo did. He began to read again, and the words were soothing and beautiful, and Frodo hugged his knees and _listened_ , looking out into nothingness.

When Beren lay dying, Frodo was weeping quietly, tears staining his breeches at the knees. Bilbo read on for a little bit, for both their sakes, but eventually the poem ended. Bilbo felt as if every cricket on every blade of grass was shouting for him to say something, but he couldn’t think of anything but platitudes. Eventually, he discarded words altogether, put the book down by his side and his arm around Frodo, pulling him into a hug. It proved to be the right thing. Frodo untangled himself and flung his arms around Bilbo's neck, sobbing hard enough to shake his thin frame. Bilbo murmured soothing nonsense and rubbed the boy’s back, and found that there were tears on his own cheeks as well, shed for Primula and for Drogo, and for Frodo most of all.


End file.
